Sports briefly: Wrestling, men's swimming, men's squash, women's squash

Wrestling
The Columbia Lions wrestling team heads to the Nittany Lion Open this weekend looking to continue competing at a high level. In a talented field that features many of the nation’s top wrestlers, the Lions will have to face many tough challenges. “It’s gonna be a long day, it’s gonna be a grind for sure,” head coach Carl Fronhofer said. “We’re just looking for our best performance possible.” While the competition promises to be stiff, the Light Blue have an excellent chance to prove themselves against some of the toughest opponents they will face all season. Junior Steve Santos, who took second place in the 149-pound weight class in the Lions’ last tournament, will most likely have a chance to face the top-ranked wrestler in his class. The Light Blue will also look for senior heavyweight Kevin Lester, who has had a slow start to the season, to reestablish himself as one of the best nationally. The tournament will take place this Sunday, Dec. 4, and last all day.

Men's Squash
The Columbia men’s squash team is facing Cornell and St. Lawrence in its first matches to open the season this Saturday. Although the results were not so great at the annual Ivy Scrimmages three weeks ago with three loses against Brown, Dartmouth, and Yale, the team hopes to live up to its Most Improved Team Award that it earned at the National Team Championships last year. This is the team’s second season playing as a varsity team, and the hopes are high with the new recruitment and the team’s ambition to carry on the momentum from last year, when they capped the season with a record of 13-5. Both matches will be held at Ithaca, New York, starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday.

Women's Squash
Playing Toronto in their home opener prior to Thanksgiving was a great introduction to the season. This weekend, the women’s squash team will face St. Lawrence and Cornell on Saturday at a neutral site in Ithaca, New York. On Sunday, the team will play a match on their home courts, at Street Squash, against Bates at 11 a.m. Head coach Kelsey Engman notes that Cornell is a very strong team and that this will be a challenging and competitive match. “Cornell has years of recruiting on us, but I think we can take games and individual matches if we play really well,” Engman said. “We saw at Ivy Scrimmages that we can have a good match with them.” Engman remarked that Bates will be the toughest competition they face this weekend, and their Saturday matches will help the team prepare for Sunday. “Playing Cornell right before we play Bates will be great to step up our intensity and get used to a higher-paced game,” Engman said. “I’m looking forward to our first real weekend of competition because the women are much stronger this year and are geared up to compete.”

Men's Swimming and Diving
The men’s swimming and diving team (2-1, 1-1 in Ivy) heads to the 2011 Big Al Open at Princeton, N.J. from December 2-4. They will be competing against Fordham, Rider, Villanova, Princeton, and Brown. This meet, followed by a dual meet against Harvard, make up the last meets of the year before the team spends winter break training in Puerto Rico. For the swimmers, especially the freshmen, the Big Al Open provides a preview of the format at the 2012 Ivy League Championships. Last year, the Lions scored 644 points for a third-place finish with eight teams competing. Despite the loss of Adam Powell, the Light Blue will have experience in sophomore Daniel Tan, junior Eric Traub, junior John Wright, sophomore Harry Stephenson, and senior Robert Eyckmans, who each qualified for the finals of the meet. The Lions hope to carry their momentum from their 171-124 dual meet win over Army. The meet starts with preliminary sessions at 11 a.m. and final sessions at 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, preliminaries start at 10 a.m., followed by the finals at 5 p.m.